WELCOME TO NEW MEMBERS
Let me welcome our new members from Congress and the economic departments of the Cabinet; as well as our guests from the private sector.

I have invited the leaders of the legislative branch to become regular members of this council because I believe national security begins in our political unity and social cohesion.

And I have asked the heads of the economic departments to sit in because, in our time, national security must depend — ultimately — on our country’s economic vigor — and on its ability to ease the poverty that still oppresses so many of our people.
THE ITEMS ON OUR AGENDA
We take up two vital foreign-policy concerns this morning.

Secretary Romulo shall review for us the state of our relations with the United States. And secretary Navarro shall be summing up the results of our recent state visits to various countries in our region.

Recent events — and trends — have worked to loosen our historical ties with the United States, just as they have brought us closer to our neighbors and partners in the Association of Southeast Asian nations and in Asia and the Pacific.
RELATIONS WITH THE UNITED STATES
From Washington’s point of view, we may have been reduced from a strategic ally in Southeast Asia to merely another developing country in need of US benevolence.

But I, for one, welcome the evolution of our two-way relationship from one government by post-colonial arrangements to one governed by straight-forward economic and strategic considerations in view of our central position in Asia and the Pacific.
We can determine — to a great degree — the future course of this relationship if we develop a strong and outward-looking Philippine economy.

US resources will then come into our country — no longer as hand-outs — but as our revenues from trade and tourism; and as direct investments, joint-venture capital, and commercial loans.

At that point, we shall have placed our two-way relationship on a level of genuine equality and mutual respect.
U.S. INFLUENCE IN EAST ASIA
Despite its recession from its Philippine naval and air bases, the United States shall continue to be a major factor in East Asian stability.

Not only it is the only state able to exert enough power to restrain Japanese, Chinese and North Korean adventurism. As the largest single market for East Asian exports, it also exerts a very strong influence on the health of the region’s economies.

The center of American gravity — in population, politics, and industry — has shifted westward — towards the so-called Sunbelt and California — away from the Atlantic coast. US trade with the Pacific Rim countries now exceeds its trade with the European Community. And an influx of migrants from Asia are making it truly a multiracial nation.

For all these reasons, the United States must be counted a permanent part of the Asian scene. The United States is an Asian power.

Most every East Asian nation wants the Americans to keep up a military presence in Southeast Asia. But the Americans are unlikely to want to maintain fixed bases outside their territories. Instead, they will emphasize airlift capacity and rapid deployment of sea-air-land power — as they did during the Iraq-Kuwait war.

As another thought for your consideration, perhaps we should now look into the possibility of tapping the political and economic potential of our large — and increasing — Filipino community in the United States — to help along both our bilateral relations and our efforts at economic development.
ASEAN’S ROLE IN OUR ECONOMIC GROWTH
As for our relations with ASEAN, let me say only that, wherever we visited, I found great respect for Philippine potentials — for our resources in both nature and in people.

We Filipinos have been accustomed to looking away from the region — for our political and economic — as well as our cultural and social — needs. We must now learn to look closer to home for the companionship of other peoples.

By our membership in AFTA — the ASEAN free trade area — we have in fact cast our lot irrevocably with Southeast Asia. And AFTAs logical outcome is one Southeast Asian community which encompasses the other countries of the region.

Toward that time we should now begin to prepare our people — in education and culture as well, as in business and in foreign affairs.

Thank you. Let us now give the floor to Secretary Romulo.